Curt Schilling on ex-38 Studios employees: ‘I failed them’

Posted by segamesandgadgets on August 14th, 2012

Editor’s note: This guest article was written by Lowell Sun sports writer Chaz Scoggins. To see more of Chaz’s work, visit his baseball blog and follow him on Twitter. In the above AP photo, Curt Schilling looks on after being introduced as a new member of the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame on Aug. 3 at Fenway Park.

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Because of his large personality, Curt Schilling can be a polarizing individual. But if people thought a hero of the last two Red Sox World Championships, in his first major personal appearance since the massive failure of his video game company, would duck the issue or even skip his induction ceremony into the club’s Hall of Fame, they were wrong.

He has every reason to feel embarrassed and humiliated. But when it came to addressing the multi-million dollar bankruptcy of 38 Studios, a failure that left the state of Rhode Island holding the bag for $75 million and, he claims, cost him most of his personal fortune, Schilling stood as tall during his pre-induction interview on Aug. 3, as he did on the mound as one of the greatest clutch pitchers in baseball history.

“It’s been hard,” Schilling freely conceded. “But life is hard. This is not someone else’s responsibility. I took a shot and tried to create something world-changing, and it didn’t work out.

“I gave it everything I had, literally. Now I’m just trying to manage day by day. I’m OK. This is what life is made up of. It’s not always 2004.”

The failure of 38 Studios put hundreds of employees out of work, and Schilling seemed genuinely sorry about that.

“That was the devastating part,” he said. “What I learned on the field here, from managers and coaches and teammates, talent aside it’s always about your people. I had a family of 400 people that I was responsible for, and I failed them.

“The challenging part,” he continued, “was helping them get back on their feet, and most of them have. There are still some situations to take care of.”

The first big group of Steroid Era superstars is coming up for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame this winter, and Schilling is among them. The baseball world is curious to see how the veteran members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (me included) treat their candidacies. Some writers have gone on record as saying they will vote for no one from that group because they’ve all been tainted by the PED issue, even if a candidate has never been accused or even suspected of being a user.

Asked to assess his own chances of being enshrined in Cooperstown someday, Schilling replied: “No clue. If it happens, it’s awesome. If it doesn’t, that’s all right.

“When I was playing I never thought about it. Now that I’m not playing, I have thought about it, and it’s going to be an interesting ballot.

“The era I played in is always going to be known as the Steroid Era, and as players we have to shoulder the blame for that,” he continued, again refusing to vacillate on a controversial issue.

“I’m curious to see how it impacts the guys. You look at the top 10 (players) from my generation, and a lot of them cheated. And that’s unfortunate.”

Even without the stain of steroids — and Schilling is not among those known to have used them — his credentials put him on the bubble as a candidate.

He didn’t come close to winning 300 games or even 250 games in the majors, although his 216-146 record, .597 winning percentage, 20 shutouts and 3.46 ERA deserve serious consideration. He was a three-time 20-game winner, leading his league in wins twice with a 22-6 record for the Diamondbacks in 2001 and a 21-6 record for the Red Sox in 2004.

He also led the NL in strikeouts twice, fanning 319 batters in 254 innings in 1997 and 300 in 269 innings in 1998.

His postseason pitching record gives Schilling’s candidacy a big boost, however. He pitched for three World Series champions, rolling up an 11-2 postseason record with a 2.23 ERA, four complete games and two shutouts. And no one can ever forget how much heart he showed in the two Bloody Sock games in 2004.

While Schilling didn’t take the opportunity to trumpet his own candidacy for the Hall of Fame, he did endorse his old Red Sox teammate, Pedro Martinez, who, like Schilling, comes up short in the career victories department even though he was the most dominant pitcher in the game for several years. Martinez won only three more regular-season games than Schilling did.